Congregational Meeting Highlights
Last Sunday night we had ourselves a good, old-fashioned congregational meeting.
I had a little trepidation going into the meeting, since last year was the most intense, confusing, disruptive, polarizing year I have ever lived through in my 43 years. Our hope was to create a space where people in our church could express what they are feeling in regards to the decisions and stances we have been making as a church. We wanted to create a space where people could ask questions and make comments to bring more clarity where any confusion or uncertainty may be festering. And we want to work toward being a tight-knit family of Jesus worshippers instead of a bigger church.
So, we prayed for some of the goodness of Acts 2 and Acts 15 to show up by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. And here is what happened…
First, I greeted everyone and threw out a bunch of chocolate candy to them.
Next, our Direction Team shared short reports highlighting some of the good things we saw last year, as well of some “what’s next” items in each of their departments.
Tammy Valdez is the Executive Director of our Ministry Team. She reported that we had 84 baptisms last year and shared how some of those who were baptized connected with us through our online church opportunities. She shared how our online church participation has increased dramatically over the last year, while our in-person attendance has steadily climbed back to near pre-Covid numbers. She shared the good news of over 400 people participating in Life Groups and 5,000 people receiving food and prayer from our Food Pantry.
Tammy has been an absolute Godsend to us. She has a strong corporate leadership background, a deep love for Jesus and Living Streams, consistent courage in decision making, and has shown great patience and faithfulness in prayer.
Arthur Le is the Executive Director of the Operations Team. He reported that we will keep the balcony as a mandatory mask space, and the lower floor and rest of campus will be mask optional in regard to Covid-19 protocols. He also shared our excitement about some renovations on our campus:
Moving our food pantry to the west end in a space previously called the Respite Shelter.
Remodeling several rooms in Upstairs Building B for the Jr High Ministry.
The growing High School Ministry will move to a renewed space in the Loft of Building D.
After this is completed this summer, we will renovate the chapel, gym lobby, and restrooms of building D with the hope of seeing Mario Benavides launch a full-on Spanish language church service in the Fall.
All of these renovations are fully funded by gifts designated and set aside outside of our operations budget.
The last thing Arthur shared was how we are contemplating and praying about getting into the education game. In light of all the anti-Biblical racial and sexual teachings finding their way into our schools, we are seeking the Lord to see if He wants us to host or create a school right here on our campus. (If this interests you, please contact Arthur: Arthur.L@livingstreams.org)
Arthur does everything well. He treats people well. He is a master of details and organization. He is joyful in everything he does. And all of his greatness is clothed in authentic humility.
Ryan Romeo is the Executive Director of the Creative Arts team. He shared about how seamless and good the transition of worship leadership from Jay Murphy to Nathan Del Turco has gone. He also shared that Nathan is no longer an “interim” worship director but has now become a full-fledged staff member directing our worship department under Ryan.
After this, Ryan announced he and his family will be heading out for 3 months of sabbatical this summer. Ryan and his wife, Blake, are both pastors at the church who have worked so hard to lift us all up, and have done so with a gracious and beautiful touch. I am so thankful for both of them and am happy for them to take this time away to recoup, refresh, and renew for the work ahead at Living Streams.
The final presentation came from Jim Watkins, the Living Streams Elder Team Chairman. We heard that, though one elder resigned his eldership and is no longer a part of our fellowship, the elder team is unified and encouraged by the decisions and stances we are making as a church. Jim also shared that our church is approximately $40,000 in the red after March, and is projected to be approximately $100,000 down by September (the end of our fiscal year). He said he doesn’t want anyone to worry because we have $500,000 set aside as an emergency fund; but he does want people to consider giving more consistently if they have been giving, and to start giving to the church if they have not.
After 25 minutes of presentations we moved on to questions and comments from those in attendance. (I also threw out some more chocolate candies.)
The question and comment time lasted about an hour, with many different people stepping up to the mic. I will not be able to touch on every question or comment, but I will share some of them.
There were a few questions about our online church. This is something we have been working on for the last 3 years, but obviously it has become a greater priority because of last year’s challenge to mass gatherings. We have hired Alec Seekins as a pastor dedicated to the online community. We still have Cliff Cesar who is and has been working on delivering the church services to those online, as well as connecting with them pastorally. At the same time we are consistently trying to make sure we are not offering some sort of counterfeit or shallow church community that will leave people frail and flimsy in their discipleship to Jesus. We welcome more ideas and help in this regard, and are thankful for the online families who have connected to our church and are helping us figure out this new reality.
There was a question about Dan Reed’s role of pastor to our senior citizens. The question was asked because Dan has decided to retire as of the end of May. Dan has done a wonderful job of pastoral care to our seniors. We assured everyone that we take the ministry to the seniors very seriously and, with Dan’s help, we will figure out how to provide great pastoral care once he moves on to God’s next mission for him.
There was a question about how we can help people not get swept away by all the anti-Biblical teachings about sexuality that are becoming so prevalent in our society and in churches, as well. In response, I shared about the origins of our sexuality. They don’t come from societal constructs. They don’t come from an evolutionary biology. The origins of our sexuality come straight from the creator God.
After God created all we see in the world, He decided to create something that looked like Him. On the 6th day God created male and female in His own image. So, when we get male and female right it is the best picture of God that we have in the world. I think this is why the devil is trying so hard to distort male and female these days.
After God created male and female and saw it was good, He instituted marriage as the next step in preserving the good. As male and female join together sexually a bond is created which is endowed by God with great power. This power is to create life — not only in the form of procreation, but also in the psychological and sociological sense. The proof of this can be seen by the fact that when divorce happens devastation happens. But when faithfulness in marriage happens between a man and woman, life, goodness, strength and security happens. When a man and a woman marry and stay faithfully committed to each other, it releases an immeasurable amount of power to create good psychologically and sociologically. Furthermore, in Ephesians 5 we learn that marriage between a male and female is the best picture we have of how our relationship with God is supposed to look.
To finish off God’s instituting of gender and sexuality in the world, He created family. In family, every child born would have a mom and dad and be taken care of. And just like male and female genders and marriage, when we get family right, goodness ensues. But when we get it wrong, devastation happens.
The reason this is such an important topic right now is because society is messing with gender, sex, marriage and family, thinking they are messing with inconsequential things. They think these are the stones at the top of the dam. But what they don’t realize is that gender, sex, marriage and family are the foundation stones holding everything together. If these are messed with or removed in any way, the dam holding back the sadness and devastation will give way.
After I said these things, there were comments about recording these thoughts so everyone could share them. So, there you have it in written form.
Other than those questions, there were a couple of budget questions which, if you have any interest in that, you can set up a meeting with Anthony DeArcos, our Finance Director at Anthony.Dearcos@livingstreams.org.
There were also a few comments of encouragement and support for how the church has conducted itself in the societal shaking of last year.
We finished by praying for our church in small groups and a song of worship.
Overall, it was a good time of fostering a family feel in our church and making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
God bless you and yours,
David